Unity Withholds Poleis Degeneration

Unity Witholds Poleis Degeneration

InfiniumEtAl
9-23-2004

Thesis:
Communal systems were so important to the ancient Greeks, to the extent that it defined their way of life, but what was even more interesting was the context in which the system emerged, interplayed, and then degenerated into the remnants we call democracy.



Abstract:
The ancient Greek system can be defined via vectors. The united and harmonious way of life, that defined their era, has direction as well as magnitude. The force is still propelling it through our daily affairs. The poleis concept of community was carried along the paths of history in an arduous path to what we currently call democracy. What this means in relation to the poleis of the ancients was that they led their life on a wave defined by their community. What this means to us is that we have some of the most spectacular outlooks on life due to the great thinkers of these times. The various city-states scattered throughout the region had different specifics regarding rule, yet they were all finitely ground in one solid principal. The concepts, inventions, and democracy that was established within this era was modified to modern standards, but it still retains the mystique the ancients gave it.


Sources:
1. Western Civilization
Sources, Images, and Interpretations
Volume I: To 1700
Dennis Sherman
Sixth Edition
McGraw Hill, N.Y.
The Ancient Greeks: Decline of the Polis By: M.I. Finley (51)

2. The Western Experience
Volume I: To the Eighteenth Century Mortimer Chambers (and others)
Eighth Edition
McGraw Hill, N.Y.
Pages 37-102
Unity Withholds Poleis Degeneration


Hermeneutical exogenesis detailing the decline of the poleis, after two centuries beginning around 800 B.C., show an equiprimordial relationship between the emergence of free government and unity of community. The magnitude of these events spanned the globe from the Indus River to Spain and Northern Africa. Many factors came in to play which eventually weakened the poleis. Yet, directionally geographical movements took precedence over all, as it defined the rest of the social interactions that led to the ultimate decline of the poleis way of life. The poleis’ crutch was the very strength that retained their way of life for so many years over such vast terrain. The sense of community was a vitality we are only beginning to realize now in our current society. The Greeks propellant into modern history was the era surrounding the poleis. Yet, it was the poleis structure that eventually led to its demise. Degeneration of the poleis occurred after a deep sense of community waned, which trailed massive shifts of the ancients geographically. Communal systems were so important to the ancient Greeks, to the extent that it defined their way of life, but what was even more interesting was the context in which the system emerged, interplayed, and then degenerated into the remnants we call democracy.
But what was this context that led to the emergence of the poleis? What made the sense of community be such a common thread throughout this part of history, and what allowed it to transcend throughout the entire region? The poleis throughout the Attican plains were home to people we call intellectual pioneers: Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Pythagorea, Xenophone, and many others. Inventions were created, theorems defined, principals upheld, and social systems established. It was a city state that was independent of anything surrounding it. It was usually comprised of a central town with the land and villages surrounding it. The humans within were composed of citizens, females who were protected but had no voting rights, slaves, and aliens. The independence of the Poleis disallowed anyone from having rights within other poleis. They were an autochthonous people, at least until they established leagues.
The poleis were relatively small as we saw from Athens, the largest of all recorded city states, which had 35 to 45 thousand men; this was how the Athenians recorded it. Historians have added the women and the rest of those residing within these states; we see that the largest city state had between 200 thousand and 300 thousand. The evolution of self government is studied deeply as it is a rare item within historical contexts. It is also the first time this has occurred in recorded history. Between the 600 to 700 poleis that must have existed, the type of governmental control varied from severely different to just slightly different, yet this type of poleis system still was present in all of them. The systems ranged from oligarchy, royal family control, dual kingship, and democracy. The initial causation behind it all was the problem of staving civil war from occurring for the masses were within such crowded quarters for the first time in history. Once the community and creative government was created the citizens found a psychological need fulfilled. They latched on and began to refine the aspect of growth, togetherness, unity, and morals within the confines of politics. Each system was slightly different but unity of the community was the key transcending issue. The individual was a synecdochical aspect of the community. They were one and the same.
The legal codes, hegemonically defined by the type of system, were placed in the town centers, or agora, displaying the manner of interactions that was appropriate for the town’s people, a well as the interactions with other regions as we see in the case of Sparta. This is significant in the creation of the poleis as we see the citizens slowly make a trend towards self government. We also see that the tyrants helped push the poleis into place. They built many public features, and not only gave control, but showed the masses that they had the ability to grow and be strong for their own rights. This was mainly due to the growing numbers of armies that were not formal citizens, and the rich who supported them in having a voice. This is ironic as we see later the fall of the poleis was mainly due to the army’s soldiers who desired a voice, leaving the actual citizens feeling as if their communities were being jeopardized by outsiders. The hoplites, soldiers, and phalanx all had solidarity like no other. This merging of the poleis solidarity and the military solidarity became a point of tension which cracked the exterior of the community from the inside out.
The economical status also lent itself to hang on the precipice of danger. The food and monies were scarce in many of the poleis and due to this lack of necessities many poleis either purchased grain from neighbors outside the immediate city state region or siphoned off their populations via colonization. This dampened the sense of community and began the trend of breaking the sense of harmony and unity from within. The citizens were taxed to support their community although there were no major systems of finances within many of the poleis. This taxation paid for the upkeep of roads, harbors and other public areas. When a project that was out of the scope of the treasury arose they simply charged it to citizens that were capable of handling it. The citizens were happy to oblige in this type of setting yet when those who had a harmonious life together began to pay for the needs of others the system began to degenerate. The Greeks also agreed with the concept of slavery. They held that it went along with morals as long as it was done efficiently.
Slaves had an extreme participation on the rise of the poleis as well as the decline. More importantly the strength of the slaves was inversely proportional to the decline. Meaning that the slaves helped propel them into a creative environment and endure the hardships of the new system. But, the slaves also were one of the feature causes of the decline of the poleis. The slaves define one reason that invention within the area of industrialization did not occur. They were used for building purposes (within Athens) and paid the same as regular citizens. Xenophone proclaims that, “A man buys a slave to have a companion at work.” They worked side by side in all industries, including pottery, stonecutters, and shoemakers.
The Spartans solved their overpopulation problem by conquering other regions. They then used them as slaves. This led them to a powerful community that was focused on war and perfection. “To Greek philosophers, Sparta was a superb example of a “mixed” constitution, in which the king represented the element of a monarchy, the council, oligarchy, and the citizenry, a kind of democracy.”(56) Sparta actually was the first to create alliances with neighboring cities as a result of their inability to outright conquer other regions after a thirty year attempt. This is significant to the community thinking about their citizens and the needs of growth. They referred to it as the Peloponnesian League, and treated it like a democracy of cities, creating a sense of an evolved community within a whole region. The Spartans held the ultimate communal sense of all the poleis as we see that the men of Sparta would live on communes together and the women had the ability to bear a child by another man to upkeep the tradition of war. This was meant directly to focus the efforts of the community towards the ensured survival of the poleis. Sparta was also very deliberate in isolating themselves. As we see they desired to retain economical isolation with the valueless iron coin, and with their inability to be welcome to visitors as well as not really intense travelers. This is not just due to their geographical isolation but also to their psychological position on community.
Sparta had the thread of communal unity running through it. But they were also military in focus and nature. On the other side of the records of ancient Greek history, Athens was like an indecisive child. They toyed with many different systems of government. Yet this was reflective of the trends of the masses that ruled, this showed they had an amazing solidarity for they had few wars and little internal strife. Athens was also one to show they departed from an earlier monarchial system as they had codified laws dictating they were now part of a justice system and not one that relied on elders or kings. The first instance of this codification was regarding the specifics of homicide; it was distinguished between voluntary and involuntary, with the defining factor being the defilement of the community in the eyes of the gods.
We see one period that was a foreshadowing of the future decline of the poleis and may have even been the actual decline of the poleis had a poet and statesman (Solon) not drastically reformed the system and pulled it out of the whole. Athens was in a terrible economical and social crisis. Money was owed, people were owed when they ran out of money, food was scarce and the population was growing. This put the wellbeing of the poleis into jeopardy. The sense of community was waning, the people became focused on food and other issues, and the internal strife levels were raised. Solon brought about not only multiple solutions to the economical situation he also brought the entire community of Greece poleis’ together. He pushed trade far and wide and more importantly he reformed the power struggle and took sole rights away from the wealthy and gave it to the citizens. The sense of harmony was back in place, and the internal levels of unity were once again reached. These rights were eventually taken again and given to all, which led directly to the decline of the poleis. When the people became accustomed to the lifestyle that revolved around the community they were placated and happy. They interacted in a controlled and moderated fashion. The politics were set aside and the community was placed on the ‘front burner’ again.
The tyrants raised themselves up again. This time they took the form of Pisistratus. He behaved within a pattern arising regularly during this period of history and performed reforms that strengthened the communities as well as gave them a true sense of citizenship. He built temples, and public works, held festivals, and created competition. He also gave out land to those who sided with him, no doubt taken from the aristocrats who ruled in the regions he conquered. Nevertheless, he showed the people that they too can live happily within a democracy. His son continued his leadership, yet something frightened him and he began to use ‘fear tactics’ on the citizens. The placated citizens became unhappy. This rapidly led to an overthrow of him and produced changes in the polios systems that we still see today.
In a rapid crescendo Cleisthenes created a true democratic system run by the masses. He spread the authority between different regions, he had a high volume of voices echoing the various locales that held citizens effected by this system. He created it so that the common man had the potential to rise to power within this forum and bring his opinions forward. The tribes of the different regions each had a representative with each one not having the ability to dominate the floor. “Each of these ten tribe’s fought as a unit in the army, and here too, men from all over Attica, not from a single region, stood together in each tribal regiment.”(60). All these communal changes and togetherness that occurred were regardless of the individuals owning land, which was surprising for the timeframe. One of the turning points of the democratic community of Athens was when the usage of lots for political positions was initiated. This was due to the belief that it reduced corruption and angry competition and it placed each man on a podium of equality and honesty. This led over time to the diminished level of people even running for the position. Eventually the positions were simply taken by the ten elders and these men were reelected. This led to the ‘great Athenian politicians competing for the position of general.’ (61)
The masses actually held power under this system by having the ability to also ostracize someone. Although, the votes were high very high to actually work, the ostracized individual was then banished for 10 years, yet their sense of community was not diminished as they still allowed his wife and family to hold land and retain citizenship. There is even a rumor that the man who created the system was banished, Cleisthenes himself.
The Peloponnesian war and the interstate wars reduced the number of men within the poleis drastically. Just when the poleis needed the rest to rejuvenate the most they were further weakened by many small wars that lasted for years. Athens was under the rule of Sparta, for a few years, the naval system was reestablished but due to arrogance the system fell again. The Spartans were finally defeated by the Thebes and almost immediately they lost men and slaves and territory. The back and forth put a toll on the sense of community.
The last leader that was killed before the system really started to decline was in a battle that used to have soldiers in the 6 thousand range and now only had 1 thousand men in their unit, he was never replaced. Alexander the Great of Macedonia took the opportunity to take control over the Greek systems. Notably he devised a tactic to maintain control within the communities as well as retain control by keeping legal power by letting the citizens retain their sense of community. This was vital in his superiority and as we see when he died and the system failed, it was mainly due to the total sense of community lost. When he died the entire system fell in to disarray.
Some of the notable technologies that were created, as progress seems to occurs when there was happiness in the poleis, were the inspiration for philosophical thought, ontological studies, Pythagoras and numbers, The atomic theory, the rhetoric sophists, the death of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, matter and form and essence’ the physical properties and the world of nature. The production of Dramas, Tragedy’s, and Comedies which all had a theme of questions surrounding communities rose within the poleis as well, due to the greater focus on community. Historical analysis with motivations and narratives was born. The perspectives of women held a tight role over control and the issues of togetherness. The civil and military were separated. These historical changes are used everyday of every one of our lives has come about as a result of the poleis. The happiness is what allowed the poleis and creativity to succeed. But, the sense of community is what made it rampant. The force was immense and the direction of the poleis, although they have declined and dropped out of use, it is still being propelled.
The degeneration of the Poleis is readily apparent with the coupling of the definition and the historical context. The community was a vital aspect of the poleis, and when the very essence of the poleis began to ebb away so too the people relocated and caused a spiral loop downward. The sense of community actually defined the Greeks way of life. We can understand the importance of Aristotle’s words regarding the very strength of the poleis community nestled within. Humans normally want to live within a community of people sharing cultural traditions and common citizenship. (53) This system of free government emerged and paved the way for not only the beginning of our recorded history but also denatured into our current state of life.